By 1740, almost 20% of New York's population was African American and roughly half of white households enslaved at least one person.  While enslaved people were forced to live and work alongside whites, they sought out the company of other African Americans. In narrow, bustling streets of the colonial city, enslaved people, especially men, walked great distances, conducted errands, and picked up news of the town.  White officials sought to control the enslaved population by passing laws that restricted their movements and actions.  But, as the following account shows, African Americans often risked punishment and resisted the laws. 

Pedro lived in the East Ward with his owner, the Dutch merchant (someone who buys and sells things) named Peter DePeyester. Albany, one of the enslaved men Pedro runs into, probably lived near the Old Slip Market, a meat market at the bottom of Smith Street, because his owner, the butcher Elizabeth Carpenter, rented a stall there. The DeLancey house, home of supreme court Chief Justice James DeLancey, was on Broadway between Little Queen Street and Little Stone Street (not named on the map below), just south of the Broadway Market, a 42 by 25 foot market in the middle of Broadway, at Crown Street.

If Pedro began his trip in the East Ward, he would have had to walk south down Queen Street or Little Dock Street to meet Albany near Mrs. Carpenter's house; north up Smith Street to Wall Street, which he would have followed for three blocks, past the sugar refinery, past City Hall to Broadway, and from there northeast to the Broadway Market, to meet "two other Negroes"; and west to the river, down Crown or Cortlandt Street (Old Wind Mill Lane on the map below), which would put him and his three friends at the water pump in front of the Dutch cooper, Gerardus Comfort's, house which was on the North River (now the Hudson River), next door to the tavern of a cobbler named John Hughson—and that's without accounting for where they picked up Jack (enslaved by Mr. Sleydall), whose residence in unknown.

During World War I, soldiers needed most of the cloth for uniforms and bandages. it was hard for women to get cloth for their own clothes. They started to make their clothes simpler and their skirts shorter, to save cloth. A lot of women were also working in factories, and they needed practical clothes. Men mostly wore wool pants, wool jackets and vests, and cotton shirts, just as they do today. Often they wore suspenders instead of a belt. They always wore hats when they were outside (but never inside).

In the 1920s, women wanted to wear looser, more comfortable clothes. They wore shorter dresses – even above their knees! And they started to wear bras under their dresses instead of corsets. More women started to wear silk dresses, but silk came from China and it was very expensive. Coats made of raccoon fur were the coolest thing to have. As Europeans began to get to know the Inuit people better, they started to copy Inuit parkas and anoraks for their own winter clothes.

By the 1950s, many women had begun to wear pants at home.. Girls weren’t allowed to wear pants to school, though, even in the 1960s, and women couldn’t wear pants in a restaurant or in church. By the 1970s that had changed, and by the end of the 1900s many women wore pants more than they wore skirts or dresses. Men continued to wear wool suits and cotton shirts to work for some kinds of jobs, and cotton jeans for other kinds of jobs.

Hammocks are simple slings made of cloth or netting. They're usually suspended between two trees, although two unmoving points — called anchors — are all you need. Some people like to sit in a hammock and swing, while others prefer to sleep or relax.

Hammocks have been around for hundreds of years. No one knows for sure who invented the hammock, but some historians believe they were created for sleeping by the early native settlers of Mexico.

In the late 1500s, hammocks became popular among sailors aboard ships. Since hammocks could gently swing with the motion of the ship, they were more comfortable to sleep in. They were also convenient, since they could easily be taken down when not in use to make the most of available space on the ship.

Hammocks became popular — and are still widely used — in tropical areas of Central and South America. Since hammocks hang above the ground, they keep people sleeping in them safe from snakes and biting insects that crawl on the ground.

After his voyages to the Caribbean, Christopher Columbus brought several hammocks back to Europe. Today, you can find hammocks used all over the world. In addition to being popular for relaxing in the backyard, hammocks are also popular with hikers and campers.
Hammocks come in all sorts of styles and materials today. You can find traditional hammocks made of rope or netting alongside sturdy hammocks made of the latest high-tech fabrics. Some hammocks can even be found that come with their own self-supporting stand, so you can enjoy relaxing in a hammock without any trees around! 

If you want to know how someone is feeling, look at their eyebrows. Look at the examples in the three rows below. Before scrolling down, what do you think each face is feeling?

Look at each column to see how the same eyes and mouths with different eyebrows to see how much of a difference they can make:

Try it for yourself! Experiment with 

In literature, the expression “they live on the other side of town” (or “the wrong side of town”) is an example of figurative language, not just a description of location.

Authors use this phrase to:

• Show class differences (rich vs. poor)
• Show racial differeneces
• Explain why characters may be treated differently
• Create conflict between characters or groups
• Help readers understand the society in the story

The expression teaches readers that judging people by where they live is unfair. Good authors often use this phrase to encourage readers to think critically and to show that a person’s value does not depend on their neighborhood.

Robert Fulton's steamboat began traveling the Mississippi River in 1811 which made travel up and down the river easier for passengers and freight. Further improvements on the design of the steamboat increased the number of boats and, therefore, the number of passengers. In 1814, there were only 20 trips to New Orleans by steamboat. By 1834, there were 1,200!

The truly big advance in travel came with trains, however. In 1827, the first stone was laid for a railroad from Baltimore, Maryland to Ohio. Train travel was much faster than other forms of travel and spurs, or rails off of the main branch of the railroad, to smaller or out of the way towns became possible. Railroads were being built all over the country with the first coast-to-coast railroad being completed in 1869.

The tables below show how much improvement there was in the time it took to travel from New York City. The dark lines show travel time in weeks, the lighter color lines show travel time in days. If you look at the very southern (or bottom) tip of Florida, for example, you can see that it took about 3 weeks to travel there in 1830 since it is past the "2 wks." line. By 1830, it had improved to 2 weeks because it is past the "1 week" line. By 1857, it took only 4 days to travel to the southernmost tip of Florida as it is past the 3 day line.

The following information is taken from the USDA, the Alabama Agricultural Museum, and Cornell University's data sets on crops. 

The following table is the price per pound for cotton. It is not adjusted for inflation, so these are the actual prices paid at the time.

Many places in Connecticut share a similar name: Charter Oak Bridge, Charter Oak State College, Charter Oak Park. Why are so many places and things in Connecticut named “Charter Oak”? The name comes from one of Connecticut’s most famous legends.

Despite Connecticut’s efforts to resist, it became part of the Dominion of New England for the next two years. In 1689, James II was overthrown and Andros lost power in the colonies. The Connecticut Charter emerged from hiding and was used to govern Connecticut until 1818.

On August 21, 1856, the Charter Oak, estimated at nearly 1,000 years old, fell down during a violent storm. Because it was such an important part of Connecticut history, people used the wood to carve chess pieces, chairs, and many other items. Original artifacts made from its wood, along with numerous images, are on display at the Connecticut Historical Society.